This is the puppy training podcast, episode 114, swimming, kayaking, and paddleboarding.

This podcast is designed to help you on your journey of becoming best friends through love and learning as you train your own dog from home.

And I'm here to help you every step of the way.

This is the puppy training podcast. And I'm your host, Amy Jensen.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the puppy training podcast. I'm so glad you're here. I appreciate you

listening week to week. And today I have Courtney here with me. So I'm happy that she's here to

talk about swimming and also

how to introduce your dogs to kayaks, paddle boards and some of those fun water activities

that we all enjoy every summer. So thanks Courtney for joining us. Thanks Amy. Thanks for having me. I'm

excited to be here. It's kind of towards the end of the summer, but every time the weather warms up,

people tend to want to teach their dogs about water and how to swim. How would you recommend they

get started? Yeah, so definitely trying to find all the safety aspects first. So if you're going to be

in a pool, we're definitely going to want to just get your dog

comfortable around the pool area before even ever going into the pool, into that water.

If you're in a lake scenario, you're not just having them go straight in, again, warming them up,

get their feet in that water, build those positives around it, make it fun and rewarding.

And then also if your puppy's very young, so say you get an eight-week-old puppy, you can definitely start this, but make sure you

are there to help. So if you're going to get them in that water, be in there with them, hold them,

guide them, let them kick around, just like you would a baby, help them find those exits so that it is

fun for them and not a scary experience. At what age is it okay, Courtney, to start teaching a puppy to

swim? Yeah. So again, I would say at eight weeks, as long as you are there and helping. So you're

in that pool. You're in that lake with them because we want to desensitize.

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